Gravitation

This we know about gravitation. Einstein showed us the way. Imagine this: This is a thought experiment. You are in an elevator – or a cage – it doesn’t matter which because your eyes are closed. Maybe you are blindfolded. And one of two things is happening: you are stationary – there in your cage – or you are being pulled through space at an acceleration of precisely 1 g. Can you tell which of those two things is happening: crouching there? flying through space? Can you tell which is which? And the truth is that you, there – in your cage with your eyes closed – maybe with your blindfold on – can’t tell the difference. Either way, you are in flight. Either way, you are on a precise arc. Either way, what you feel is the curvature of space-time. What you feel is everything you’re racing toward and everything you’re falling away from. And that arc is an orbit. A loop. And maybe it’s eccentric as all fuck – said as only those who watch the stars for patterns can say it – but aren’t the most interesting ones always eccentric? The comets that smear the sky with that wonderous mix of fear and awe. Or that asteroid that blazed like a freight train on fire, flattening half of Siberia and knocking those peasants out of their blanket-covered beds. The most interesting ones always have a periodicity that makes sense to no one but themselves. They are the ones that only the pattern-watchers- if even them – have ever seen coming on.